Not sure if it was posted yet ... Fly the Danica Skies.

 

I don't on either the fuel or ETEs. What are you seeing?

 

Mostly into ATL. Overburns of 6-700lbs with a planned 1:15 flight taking 1:22-1:24. Same with other airports.

My guess is that there's no arrival buffer built into the flight planning software. It just plans time and gas from the end of the arrival direct the airport.

 

Interesting. Thanks all for the responses. My company is starting to get more aggressive about minimizing the extra fuel we carry around, and I was trying to get a feel for how the big boys play it.

 

Well, you're very precise. I guess I'm a measure once and cut twice type. But a few minutes here or there I just chalk that up to traffic (short final to 28 or way out there by Alabama landing on 8L). I've looked down and seen the ETE entered into the ACARS be pretty spot on but it'd be a good question to know if they're using favoring winds to determine approaches and therefore landing times. I'd say taxi times can be way off, but vast majority of the time that's in our favor.

I don't do a full HOWZITHANGIN unless I'm bored or it's a CUN type flight. When I do it I've never really seen a 600 lb difference that cannot be explained. I just run the CI that's on the flight plan though unless there is a good reason to go higher. Of course sometimes you go 3 hours staring at a yoke in a bank and those fading white indicators out of trim, but I don't tell anyone how to fly. Probably doesn't help fuel burn.

Next time I fly I'll watch it but I can't say I've seen anything that jumped out at me.

 

Random story, but it kind of reminds me of when I was at Coex and we had a pilot only rule of thumb of 3000lbs as the sort of kinda min fuel on the E145. The company wanted to a) take us out of the loop on ordering fuel and b) start using the real min fuel of 1800 lbs or somewhere around there. For good reason.

Well right before they decided to go lower I'm doing a CLE-MSP flight the FMS pops up and says we'll land with 2900 lbs. Captain panics and wants to divert to MKE which was not on the flight plan anywhere. I said, okay, let me tell dispatch you want to divert. NO TIME! Well, it's 30 minutes behind us... NO TIME! MUST GO! TELL ATC WE NEED PRIORITY HANDLING! (all I could think was don't laugh, I think he's serious)

We made it to MSP. We landed with 2900 lbs and he filled out an ASAP. I bet that dude had an aneurism when it dropped to 1800ish lbs. Actually, I think he was bound to have an aneurism anyways.

The way I think we came to accept this was that we weren't the ones ordering fuel anymore. You couldn't blame us if the fuel we were given turned out not to be enough and we diverted. Which of course costs lots of money and if it happened often then they'd adjust up. I don't think they had to, it ended up working and we just reset our personal minimums.

but it was kind of like "this is your problem, not my problem." I'll land with plenty of fuel, but whether that place was the intended destination was up to them and their computer.

 

You're probably right. Some people can't even pose properly for their oil painting.







Carl

 

Here's my problem, I live in FL, but I love the Bruins! So I can't watch the B's on local FL TV, unless they are playing the Lightning or Panthers.

BUT...at least the Lightning are playing well this year, fun to watch Marty St. Louis, and Vinny and Stamkos, but tonight, the B's LOST, 7-4 to the much hated Sabres!

So...I'll just have to wait until it's the B's agains the L's again in the playoffs. That was fun, Marty vs. his old VT room mate, Thomas.

 

And being a national hero............he was, of course, elected President!

 

Just boredom. I like to split hairs on stuff like that. The FAA interpretation of "planned fuel burn" and the process in use at most carriers is night and day.

In the Sabre flight planning software you could tweak how much extra time and gas each airport got. Chicago and Atlanta was 10-12 minutes, Jackson, MS was 0. You just tracked the overtime and overburn and...

Ahhh forget it.